Resolution Of The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

bubblywatr writes: "A Caltech physics professor, Dr. Zewail, has apparently resolved the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (that the velocity and position of an electron cannot be determined simultaneously). He proposes in a recent issue of Nature(July 19: " The Fog that was not"), that one can solve, USING CLASSICAL PHYSICS (ie: f=ma), for the location and the position in space of a fundamental particle simultaneously by using FEMTOSECOND DATA COLLECTION (which can pick up atomic energy states), WHILE THE WAVEFORMS OF MATTER ARE IN COHERENCE (which minimizes the error of the femtosecond data because of the localizing effects of coherence). "

What does this mean? Femtosecond resolution apparently provides the localization needed to treat electrons as classical spheres in space, nearly following Newtonian physics. However, femtosecond chemistry has been around for years, so why hasn't this worked yet? Well, there is a great deal of error in gathering energy values, even when energies are collected at femtosecond intervals. This is due to freaky quantum physics i don't understand. But, as Zewail states, 'this freaky quantum error can be nearly eliminated if the matter is made coherent'. This means that the wavelike properties of matter are superimposed leading to the addition or destruction of waveforms. This is like the 'double slit experiment', in which regular light is shown through two slits, the waveforms either completely add or subtract, and what you see on the wall is a bunch of tiny spots of light at a defined point in space."